China: 1000 year history against plagiarism

Many western academics believe that traditional confusian culture is the reason why Chinese students have plagiarism problems. They think that they come from a culture that has no concept of plagiarism. Here is a quote that seems to give the lie to this belief:

Based on my educational experience as a native of China and the research I have conducted, I would like to argue that the claim that copying others’ writing as one’s own is allowed, taught and/or encouraged in China is not accurate. I received all my education, with the exception of my graduate study, in China, and I never recall any of my teachers telling us it was acceptable to copy others’ writing and turn it in as one’s own, be it a paragraph or a couple of sentences. On the contrary, all my teachers often warned us not to copy others’ work. In fact, the concept of ‘plagiarism’ as an immoral practice has existed in China for a very long time. Chinese has two terms for plagiarism and they are both derogatory: ‘piao qie,’ which literally means to rob and steal someone else’s writing, and ‘cao xi’, which means to copy and steal.

The first term, ‘piao qie’, has no other meaning except for plagiarism, and the second term, ‘cao xi’, may also mean to secretly attack someone from behind. The use of the first term can be traced back to AD 700. According to Ci Yuan (1988: 197), the most authoritative dictionary of Chinese etymology, Liu Zhongyuan, a very famous Tang Dynasty poet who lived from 773 to 819, used the term ‘piao chie’ to deplore the fact that quite a few scholars resorted to plagiarism. Similarly, Han Yu, another famous writer in late AD 700, also employed the term to condemn plagiarism (You, Wang, Xiao, Ji, and Fei 1983 vol. 3: 141). Thus, the concept of plagiarism has existed in China for more than a thousand years.

Liu, Dilin. (2005). 'Plagiarism in ESOL students: is cultural conditioning truly the major culprit?' ELT Journal Volume 59/3 July. p. 235